Question 4 1969 was a time where African American musicians and political organizations were fighting against the war on Black America. For example, James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone both stood up for African American rights and equality, but took very different approaches to their music and message. Political organizations also took a similar approach to black liberation. For instance, there were militant groups like The Black Panthers and nonviolent advocacy groups like the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC). During this time having a spectrum of opinions and approaches to ending racism was essential because it gave anyone who was willing to join the fight someone to look up to and gain strength from.…
Dr. Carter G. Woodson was the smartest man in black history. I believe because he had very strong and intellectual views on one of the most important issues our world is still facing today. Part of Dr. Woodson thesis explains that we as African American people are so out of touch with the achievements made by our ancestors due to the fact that the curriculum taught in school systems fails to include it. Woodson 's thesis revolved around the fact that in schools we are only taught only about our caucasian, hispanic, and chinese counterparts history and nothing really about african american history. In chapter five Woodson explains we have a failure to make a living .Also…
The movie “John Q” tells a story about a man named John Archibald who works in a factory and lives with his family, Denise and Michael. Everything is well until Michael collapses while playing in a baseball game because of heart failure. John takes his son to the hospital, only to discover that Michael needs a heart transplant immediately and without one, he will die. John Archibald also learns that his health insurance will not cover for him and the situation gets worse. This situation involving health insurance gives a great impact on the choices and actions that John Archibald does.…
Ava DuVernay's compelling new documentary breaks the silence on police brutality. This visual invitation to a history most refuse to acknowledge. A Netflix original, 13th, reveals a rather disturbing phenomena on modern day slavery. Lined up with writers, activist and United States attorneys, this film ranges from a political standpoint on a very disturbing and shunned past. This documentary, incredibly hard to watch and powerful enough to awaken even the simplest of minds.…
To a large extent, reconstruction can be seen as a turning point for African Americans. This is particularly evident through examining the role of the congress element of federal government, to which they passed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, which allowed freedom of slaves, US citizenship of African Americans and gave African Americans the vote. This therefore allowed African Americans to have basic rights to live in American society in the eyes of the law. Similarly, the government created the ‘Enforcement Acts(1870)’ which banned terrorist groups such as the KKK, therefore socially making life better for African Americans as the fear of being lynched was significantly reduced. The government set up the ‘Freedman’s bureau(1865) which…
The book Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to WWII was written by well known journalist and writer Douglas A. Blackmon. Blackmon was born on January 16, 1964 in Stuttgart , Arkansas but was eventually raised in the small town of Leland, Mississippi where he developed his love for writing. In 1986 Blackmon would later go on to graduate from Hendrix College. Throughout his career Blackmon has accumulated various accolades such as the American Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.…
all the questions of race relations, and of stereotyping. That was the farthest from minds. Again, what we were trying to do was to present an amusing set of characters in as amusing a background as we possibly could, doing amusing things, to entice that audience to come back next week. (Turner, 1994) Henry Gates expressed in documentary, Color Adjustment,” When we think of this group of people whose historical experience had been transformed by the war (World War II), poised for full integration into the American society, and then we think about, what they were greeted with, as television made its debut. They were greeted with images of fully autonomous, segregated, separate black communities, which was the community in which Amos ‘n’ Andy…
How should one relive history? For many, the greatest moments in history were the most excruciating to relive while others reveled in the moment to tell you about their past. At least until questioned about his or her barbaric actions towards another human being. Dating back to the 1800’s, Mississippi has been the most consistent at reliving and recreating racism and its history. Whether this is by happenstance or by the utter hatred of those who are born and bred in good ole sovereign Mississippi.…
Music is a powerful language which speaks to us, move us, and fills us with emotions. In “Sonny’s Blues”, the voice of jazz reflects the relationship between two brothers. The unnamed narrator who represents one of the one of the sides of the African American experience. Sonny the titular character of the story, Sonny represents the other side of the African American experience. In “Sonny’s Blues” we find an important description of how a musician can express his feeling through his music.…
The reason I chose to take this photo was because I feel that it sends the obvious message that we should stop the social inequality going on around us. We should stop focusing on our differences and focus more on our similarities and possible common goals. Maybe if we did this we could truly grow and become unified as a nation. We as a society should join forces and put an end to all of the discrimination and racism that surrounds us daily. I know that in a way this is an unrealistic expectation because the odds of there being absolutely zero inequality are closer to none than anything.…
Racism was an immense problem in the American South during the 1930s and still is in America today. In the PBS American Experience: An American Tragedy, it is clearly shown. The blacks were mistreated because of their color and their class. From the time the nine black boys got on the train they were already at a disadvantage because of their race. Scottsboro was clearly a tragedy that will never be forgotten.…
The state of racial equality in America has been a hot topic since the beginnings of this nation. From the origins of slavery to the currently racial tension, concepts of civil rights reign as a primary problem in the United States to this day. As times changed and African Americans slowly fell into dominant roles in the entertainment business, a developing sense of self awareness led to an overwhelming surge of African American pride and the civil rights movement. The 1920’s-30s saw such a transformation in the perspective of black people even within their own community that it came to be referred to as the New Negro Movement. Professor Clement Alexander Price of Rutgers U, Newark encompassed the transformation of black people during this…
Soul Train became “a cultural touchstone for the [young] African American artistic community” and provided this subculture with a platform where they could fully express themselves, often in forms of dance (Schnakenberg 632-633). Robert Schnakenberg highlights Todd Boyd’s, who is an assistant professor of critical studies at USC’s School of Cinema-Televison, quote: “Soul Train showed a generation what it meant to be cool” (632-633). And Soul Train truly did help in developing the growth of both funk and dance among the black youth that viewed the program regularly. In his article on Pitchfork, Stephen Deusner questions whether the music or the moves were more important in the success of Soul Train. Deusner goes on to assert that, “The well-known [funk artists]... were very often upstaged by the flamboyantly dressed dancers gyrating for the camera.”…
James Baldwin accomplished things when he wrote “Sonny’s Blues—not only is the story a memoir of the lives of African Americans in Harlem in the 1950’s but also a story about the struggles and decisions that affect family and brotherhood. Harlem, the setting, traps the African Americans who call it home; it traps them in a life of poverty, crime, and anger. Two brothers choose very different paths: the narrator becomes a respectable teacher whose goal is to assimilate into a white society, and the other is a jazz musician, a heroin addict, also hooked on a life of crime, who turns to music to find himself and connect to his community and heritage. Baldwin depicts the plight of African American men in the urban communities through such themes…
During a period in time where African Americans were physically and systematically oppressed, the Blues gave people hope, a way of grieving or expressing pain. The blues speak out to me, you could literally feel the artist’s pain in blues music. As a result, I choose this genre of music, because it truly intrigues me. Furthermore, “blues music gain popularity through the publication of Memphis Blues in 1912 and St Louis Blues 1914 by W.C. Handy (1873-1958)”…